Ethel Churchill/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX.
Alas, how bitter are the wrongs of love
Life has no other sorrow so acute:
For love is made of every fine emotion,
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts;
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of Heaven;
It nestles 'mid the flowers, and sweetens earth.
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too:
It doth exalt another o'er itself,
With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise
That which it worships; yet is fain to win
The idol to its lone and lowly home
Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck
When such hopes perish. From that moment, life
Has in its depths a well of bitterness,
For which there is no healing.
Lady Marchmont was left alone in the grotto with its ill-fated master, and every kindly feeling in her nature was in arms. Affecting not to have noticed what passed, she approached where Pope stood,—speechless, pale with anger, and a yet deeper emotion: she said, in a voice whose usual sweetness was sweeter than ever, with its soothing and conciliating tone,—"There is one part of your garden, Mr. Pope, which I must entreat you to show me. I have a dear, kind, old uncle at home, who owes you many a delightful evening. He will never forgive me unless I write him word that I have seen
'The grapes long lingering on the sunny wall.'"
Pope took her hand mechanically, and led her forth; but the effort at self-control was too much for his weak frame. The drops stood on that pale, high brow which was the poetry of his face, and he leant against the railing. "No!" exclaimed he, passionately, after a few minutes' silence, "your courtesy, lady, cannot disguise from me that you, too, heard the insult of that heartless woman. Let me speak—I know I may trust your kindness; and, even if you turned into after ridicule the bitter outpouring of this moment's misery, you would but do as others, in whom I trusted, have done. My God! how madly I have loved her—madly, indeed, since it made me forget the gulf that nature has set between us—she so beautiful, and I, as she has just said, who only resemble my kind to disgrace it! Yet she sought me first, she led me on, she taught me to think that the utter prostration of the heart was something in her eyes—that a mind like hers could appreciate mind. Fool, fool, that I have been! What have I done, that I should be thus set apart from my kind,—disfigured, disgraced, immeasurably wretched? O! that I might lay my weary head on my mother earth, and die!"
"We could not spare you," exclaimed Lady Marchmont, taking his hand affectionately,—the tears starting in her eyes; "but not for this moment's mortification must you forget your other friends—how much even strangers love and admire you. Think of your own glorious genius, and on the happiness which it bestows. I have but one relative in the world: he is an old solitary man; and I think of him with cheerfulness, whenever I send him a new page of yours. I speak but as one of many who never name you but with admiration and with gratitude."
Pope pressed the hand that yet remained in his own. "God bless you, my dear, kind child! I thank you for calling my power to my mind. She shall learn that the worm on which she trod has a sting."
They loitered a little while, till the irritated host was equal to joining his guests. The boat was ready; and the whole party joined in laughing at Lady Marchmont for her long tête-à-tête with Pope.
"I am not jealous," cried Lady Mary:
"'Ye meaner beauties, I permit ye shine—
Go triumph in a heart that once was mine!'"
"I think," said Lady Marchmont, pointedly, "there has been as little heart in the matter as possible; but you shall none of you laugh me out of my cordial admiration of a man of first-rate genius, and whose personal infirmities call upon us for the kindliest sympathy."
"By Jove! you are right," cried the Duke of Wharton: "how much vanity may be pardoned in one who has such cause for just pride! He is building up a noble monument in his language, which will last when we, with our small hopes and influences, are as much forgotten as if we had never been."
"I see no great good in being remembered," retorted Lady Mary: "I would fain concentrate existence in the present. I would forget in order to enjoy. As to memory, it only reminds me that I am growing older every day; and as to hope, it only puts one out of conceit with possession."
"All this is very true of our commonplace existences," replied Lady Marchmont; "but the gifted mind has a diviner element."
"'How charming is divine philosophy—
Not harsh and rugged, as dull fools believe,'"
exclaimed Lord Hervey, with a sneer.
"With the single exception of Lady Marchmont," said Wharton, "we have all behaved shamefully to-day. How I will admire the next thing that Pope writes! and, what is more, I will ride over to Twickenham to tell him so;" and, having made this compromise with his conscience, the conversation dropped.
From that day, however, all friendship was at an end between Lady Mary and Pope. How he revenged himself is well known. His lines yet remain, stamped with all the bitterness of wounded vanity and mortified affection. Strange, the process by which love turns into hate. I pity it even more than I blame it. What unutterable wretchedness must the heart have undergone! What scorn and what sorrow must have been endured before revenge could become a refuge and a resource!